I agree that monotheism is relatively recent with our species - and
dates back to large populations that are settled in a particular
domain - and within an agricultural/horticultural economy.
No hunting/gathering economy with its small population would have
monotheistic beliefs. It would have so-called 'animism'. Equally, a
pastoral nomadic society with its larger population - wouldn't have
monotheistic beliefs. It would have a polytheistic belief system.
Again - you only get a monotheistic ideology - with its concomitant
centralized authority over those beliefs and a bureaucracy to govern
them - when you get large settled two-class societal systems.
Edwina
On Wed 15/05/19 8:59 AM , [email protected] sent:
Jon, my responses are inserted ([gf:).
I should say first that I do not find Peirce’s “neglected
argument” for the reality of God persuasive insofar as it
attributes qualities to Ens necessarium other than necessity. I have
no problem with calling this ens “Creator” or “God”, but I
don’t believe (as Peirce apparently did) that the notion of God as
omniscient or omnipotent or benevolent or “vaguely like a man”
(CP 5.536) is so built into human nature that it arises naturally
from musement on the origin of the three Universes. I think
monotheism is a relatively recent cultural invention, dating back
only 5,000 years or so, and one that is not common to all cultures,
let alone all humans. Peirce’s “humble argument” then speaks
only for himself and his culture. It certainly doesn’t speak from
my own experience of Musement.
From: Jon Alan Schmidt
Sent: 14-May-19 17:12
Gary F., List:
GF: ... I don’t see our interpretations, considered as
interpretants, to be final in any sense;
I agree, and did not mean to imply otherwise; all of our actual
interpretations are Dynamic Interpretants. Again, the Final
Interpretant is "that which would finally be decided to be the true
interpretation if consideration of the matter were carried so far
that an ultimate opinion were reached" (CP 8.184, EP 2:496; 1909 Feb
26), or "the effect the Sign would produce upon any mind upon which
the circumstances should permit it to work out its full effect" (SS
110; 1909 Mar 14).
[gf: In that case, what you should have written is that “whoever
would have considered the matter [i.e. the Universe as Sign] so far
that an ultimate opinion were reached would be the interpreter(s).”
That is a far cry from saying that “all of us are its
interpreters,” even if we take that in a collective rather than a
distributive sense.
The point is that the Ultimate Opinion would include knowledge of
God, since that is what it means to say that God is real.
Really? I don’t see how this follows from (or is even consistent
with) Peirce’s definition of “real” as “having Properties,
i.e. characters sufficing to identify their subject, and possessing
these whether they be anywise attributed to it by any single man or
group of men, or not” (EP2:434, CP 6.453). Being real does not
mean being known.
GF: ... the Universe includes all of us, all our thoughts and
actions, and I don’t see how anyone can be both a part and an
interpreter of the same Sign.
I understand this objection and need to think about it some more.
My initial response is that according to Peirce, every interpreter is
a Quasi-mind, every Quasi-mind is a Sign, and interpretation consists
in additional Signs further determining a Quasi-mind. Moreover, as I
already pointed out, neither an utterer nor an interpreter is
essential to a Sign; only an Object and an Interpretant. I suspect
that the resolution is connected with recognizing the continuity of
the Universe as an ongoing "inferential process" of semeiosis,
"working out its conclusions in living realities" (CP 5.119, EP
2:193; 1903); in that sense, every effect that the Universe actually
has on us is a Dynamic Interpretant of it as a Sign.
[gf: But surely the Universe is not only a Sign, and some of its
effects on us are results of dyadic, “mechanical” interactions.
(You’re not denying the reality of Secondness, are you?)
GF: I also wonder how we can justify designating any of our
knowledge as “knowledge of God.” (If all knowledge is knowledge
of God, then “of God” is simply redundant.)
I am not suggesting that "all knowledge is knowledge of God," nor
that our knowledge of God is certain or by any means complete.
[gf: I think you missed my point here, which was to ask how we can
logically distinguish between knowledge of God and other knowledge,
such as knowledge of Nature. Without making that distinction, we
can’t say that any item of knowledge is “knowledge of God”
(rather than knowledge of something else). But if God is real, then
so is the distinction; we can’t make it arbitrarily as we do when
we name things.
CSP: The hypothesis of God is a peculiar one, in that it supposes
an infinitely incomprehensible object, although every hypothesis, as
such, supposes its object to be truly conceived in the hypothesis.
This leaves the hypothesis but one way of understanding itself;
namely, as vague but as true so far as it is definite, and as
continually tending to define itself more and more, and without
limit. (CP 6.466, EP 2:439; 1908)
General revelation is only adequate for the knowledge that God is
real, along with knowledge of some of His attributes--e.g., "those
usually ascribed to Him, omniscience, omnipotence, infinite
benignity, and a Being not immanent in the Universes of Matter, Mind,
and Ideas, but the Sole Creator of every content of them without
exception" (R 843:15[1]; 1908).
[gf: But Peirce said “that revelation, far from affording us any
certainty, gives results less certain than other sources of
information. This would be so even if revelation were much plainer
than it is” (CP 1.143, 1893).
GF: You ask, “Is there such a thing as an unintentional or
purposeless Sign--i.e., one that has no final cause, and thus no
Final Interpretant?” My immediate answer is, Of course there is
such a thing; it’s what is known as a “natural sign,” such as
an event which becomes a sign only because someone interprets it as
representing something else in some way.
On the contrary, my understanding is that if there is no Final
Interpretant, then there is no Sign at all. If an event is capable
of being interpreted as representing something else in some way, then
there is an effect that it "would produce upon any mind upon which the
circumstances should permit it to work out its full effect."
[gf: OK, but I understood you to be arguing that the Universe is an
intentional sign because it is intended by God. I don’t see how this
can be reconciled with what Peirce said in the Additament to the NA:
“How, for example, can we ever expect to be able to predict what
the conduct would be, even of any omniscient being governing no more
than one poor solar system for only a million years or so? How much
less if, being also omnipotent, he be thereby freed from all
experience, all desire, all intention! Since God, in His essential
character of Ens necessarium, is a disembodied spirit, and since
there is strong reason to hold that what we call consciousness is
either merely the general sensation of the brain or some part of it,
or at all events some visceral or bodily sensation, God probably has
no consciousness” (EP2:447, my bold).
Since you acknowledge your disagreement with Peirce about the entire
Universe having a purpose, I will not belabor that point.
[gf: I hope I haven’t belabored my other points too much.
Regards,
Jon Alan Schmidt - Olathe, Kansas, USA
} I surrender to the belief that my knowing is a small part of a
wider integrated knowing that knits the entire biosphere or creation.
[G. Bateson] {
http://gnusystems.ca/wp/ [1] }{ Turning Signs gateway
Links:
------
[1] http://gnusystems.ca/wp/
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